David Mateos

Universitat de Barcelona

Experimental Sciences & Mathematics

I was born in 1974 in Barcelona. I obtained my PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Barcelona in 2000. After that I enjoyed many years of wonderful postdoctoral life at Cambridge University, UK (2 years), Perimeter Institute, Canada (3 years) and University of California at Santa Barbara, USA (3 years). I am an ICREA Research Professor at the Department of Quantum Physics and Astrophysics at the University of Barcelona since July 2008. In 2012 I was awarded a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (1.4 M€).

Research interests

My main goal is to understand the physics of the Universe at the most fundamental level. Our present understanding is based on two theories. General relativity is a classical theory that provides a good description of gravitational interactions at large, macroscopic scales. The other three interactions, the electromagnetic, the strong and the weak interactions, are unified in a quantum theory, the so-called Standard Model of elementary particles. The answers to many important questions in fundamental physics require a unified, quantum theory of all interactions; these questions include the quantum properties of black holes, cosmology and the origin of the Universe, particle physics beyond the Standard Model, etc. For this reason I work on string theory, a quantum theory that has the potential to describe all forces and particles in Nature in a single, unified framework.